In Stale and Dysfunction
by seilleanmor
Summary: Please, God, let it be her. He holds his breath, looks at the caller ID. Montgomery. Missing scenes from Knockout. COMPLETE.


A rewrite of a story I wrote almost a year ago to the day, hopefully improved by all I've learned in that time.

* * *

A sudden increase of pulse rate,  
The unusual and uncalculated reaction,  
A mystified set of uncertain emotion,  
Seeing her moving across the junction,  
My mind in stale and dysfunction,  
It approached, the great temptation

**- The Great Temptation, _Gaylord Munemo_**

* * *

He sits in his office. Takes a swig of the beer in front of him, long warmed to room temperature, and winces as it curdles in his stomach, rolls around the empty cavern of it. He can't think, blind to all that is not her name, her face, the smell of her, the desperate way he loves her.

Kate.

She said they were over. Damn it, he'd tried. He'd tried to tell her how he feels and she'd kicked him out, told him they were over.

He knows it's not the end. Can't be, there's too much between them. But right now, here, his pride embers at his feet, it feels like he's never going to see her again.

He drops his head a little lower in his hands, the weight of his whirring mind too much for the muscles of his neck to bear. All the memories sting now, even though he cherishes them. So many times he should have turned around, circled her wrist with his fingers and pulled her against him. His palm hot and heavy and right between her shoulder blades as his mouth worked over hers until her knees buckled and she canted into him and-

No. Didn't happen. Should have, but didn't, and really hasn't that always been the problem between them?

His phone vibrates on the desk next to him and he jolts, snaps out of his reverie, adrenaline pulsing in his veins. It might be her. Please, God, let it be her. He holds his breath, looks at the caller ID.

Montgomery. Shit.

He clicks the button to answer, brings the phone to his ear, tries to clear his voice of any resentment. Really, it's not fair to resent the captain just because he's not Kate. "Hi."

Hmm, maybe not as neutral as he'd hoped for.

"Castle?" He bristles at Montgomery's voice. It's tinged with fear, laced with panic, but the overriding edge is exhaustion. The captain just sounds like even his bones are tired.

He swallows his questions. "Yes, sir?"

Roy coughs, there's a brief silence in which Rick can picture him running his hand down his face, maybe taking a sip of scotch. "I need you to do me favour. Come down to the aircraft hangar and hide until I tell you to come out."

Rick sucks in a breath, opens his mouth to question Roy, but the older man cuts him off. "Don't ask questions. I can't explain. I just need you there, for Kate."

He's blind to the questions that pulsed at the forefront of his mind moments ago, the words 'for Kate' erasing everything but a visceral need to get to her, keep her safe.

"Okay sir, when?"

Montgomery makes a noise of appreciation. "Eleven tonight. And remember; _do __not_ _move_ until I tell you too."

Rick hums his ascent, hangs up and drops his phone to the desk, staring at it. What the hell just happened? He has no idea what's going on but honestly? He doesn't really care all that much.

He didn't even acknowledge the man bleeding out next to him, the man with pertinent information to her mother's case, way back in January. He gets tunnel vision when Kate's life is in danger, can't function past his need to protect her.

* * *

Rick pulls up at the hangar, parks his car outside and steps through into the hangar itself. His footsteps a rolling cadence on the linoleum, he calls out for his captain but gets no answer. He moves back towards the wall, allows the shadows to cloak him. He knots his hands in front of him and settles in to wait, still utterly blind to the reason he's here.

It could be five minutes, it could be five hours, but eventually Kate appears, striding across the hangar floor. The long and fluid line of her legs projects a confidence he knows she doesn't feel, can tell by the set of her shoulders.

"Captain?" She calls. Her tone is laced with confusion but so very trusting, even as it's beginning to dawn on Rick that this scenario can't end well, feels too much like an awful confrontation scene from one of his early novels, back when his plots were contrived and ridiculous.

"Over here." Montgomery appears from the store room and Kate begins to walk towards him, her faith in her captain unshakeable.

Kate's phone goes off, a text alert, and he stiffens. The noise is just too much, too sharp, cutting through the heavy tension and making his blood slam against the walls of his veins.

She stops, glances at her phone. He doesn't know what it says, but he can guess from the cocktail of pain, fear and betrayal that spills from her eyes, taints the rest of her face, marring her features. He wants to skate his lips across the lines in her forehead, erase the tension. He has to use every ounce of self control he posses to stop himself from running over and doing just that.

Roy pulls a gun from behind his back and clicks off the safety. Rick's stomach rolls, the beer from earlier threatening to reappear. He clenches his fists, so desperate to go to her that it chokes him. But he has to trust the captain, has to wait.

Kate's hand reaches back, settling against her gun, but she leaves it in the holster. "Put the gun away, Roy." She sounds so brittle and Rick knows without a doubt that what's about to happen is going to break her.

"Kate I'm not going to jail for this. I can't put my family through that." Rick swallows hard, has to clamp his lips shut to stop the low keening that builds behind his sternum from spilling out.

"Why?" It's not Kate now. It's Beckett, cold, clinical, emotionless interrogation voice. She's pushed her feelings down where they can rot inside her.

He knows before Roy even answers. "I was a rookie when it happened, Kate. McAllister and Raglan were heroes to me, I believed in what we were doing. We were just going to snatch Pulgatti that night. Armen wasn't even supposed to be there." The confirmation hits him hard, a fist twisting in his gut. The third cop is Montgomery and Kate is broken. She has to be, there's no way she can keep breathing through this. It's crushing him and it's not even his mother.

He doesn't even hear the rest of Montgomery's confession, rushing white noise filling his every pore, leaving him stunned and reeling, gasping for breath.

He forces his eyes to open, watches Kate steel herself, her shoulders cast in stone. "Did you kill my mother?" There's no force behind the question, the tattered ribbon of her vocal chords betraying her.

Please God let the answer be no. he can't watch her fall apart silently if it was Roy. He's not sure he can stop himself from smashing his fists into their captain's face until he breaks beneath him, bleeding out the way he left her mother to in an alley like she was trash, like she wasn't everything-

"No, that was years later." He sucks in a breath, sends a silent prayer of thanks to a body he doesn't even believe is there. "But she died because of what we did that night." He really, seriously needs Roy to stop talking because he is going to _lose it_.

Kate doesn't react, doesn't flinch, just keeps going in her desire to know the truth. "Then who killed her?"

Roy takes a deep breath that Rick honestly doesn't think he deserves right now. "I don't know how, but somehow he figured out what we had done. He could have turned us all in, instead he demanded the ransom money. He took that money to become what he is, and God forgive me but that may be my greatest sin."

Kate refuses to listen, refuses to acknowledge Roy's words. "Give me the name. You owe me that, Roy."

Rick holds his breath, stills his trembling muscles, forces himself not to run to her. "No, Kate. I can't give you the name. I know you; you will run straight at him. I might as well shoot you where you stand." Relief washes over him in waves. Montgomery's right, if he gives her a direction she will run at it and she will get herself killed before she even sees the finish line.

"That's why you brought me here, isn't it? To kill me." Rick tenses, poised to fight. If that is Roy's intention, if he made Rick come here to _watch_, he will rip off the bastard's head with his bare hands.

"No. I brought you here to lure them."

Kate's whole face hardens into this shattered mask of shock, the muscles of her jaw no longer compliant. "You baited them?"

"And now they're coming. I need you to leave. They are coming to kill you and I'm not going to let them. I'm going to end this." It hits Rick with enough force that he doubles over. There's no way Kate's going to leave, it's going to fall to him to get her out. The bastard has put that on Castle, given him that, more fuel to stoke the fire of Kate's hatred for him.

"I'm not going anywhere, sir."

"Yes you are. Castle, get her out of here." He steps forwards, stands as close to Kate's back as he dares. She whips around to look at him, her eyes pleading with his.

As much as he hates the man right now, Rick can't just stand back and watch Montgomery sacrifice himself. "Captain, I-"

Montgomery cuts him off, his tone laced with acid. "Don't argue. That's why I called you. Get her out of here now."

Castle hesitates, his body suddenly too heavy to do anything but watch. Kate jumps in. Headfirst, drowning. "Captain please, just listen to me, you don't have to do this."

Rick reaches for Kate's shoulder, her name falling from his lips tastes like despair. She shakes him off, feral. "No, please, no, sir." She moves closer to Roy. "I forgive you. I forgive _you_."

Roy shakes his head slowly, the weight of a man who knows his time has come painted into the lines of his face. "This is my spot, Kate. This is where I stand."

Kate shakes her head, opens her mouth but can't get any sound out of her throat. Rick moves nearer and he thinks perhaps the heat of him at her back gives her strength enough to form words. "No."

Roy looks past her, meets Rick's eyes. "Castle." He's frozen, every nerve ending suddenly unwilling to cooperate. The tone of the captain's voice jolts him and he reaches for her again, tries to be a lifeline.

He can see the strength draining out of her, see her giving up. "No, no, sir. Please. Listen to me; you don't have to do this." Her voice is so broken, like shards of glass cutting through his ribcage to pierce his vital organs, leave him defenceless.

In the distance, a car approaches, rolls towards them, cresting the wave of finality this whole standoff has held. "Castle, get her out of here now." He's moving before the captain's words even come, spurred on by his desperate need to keep her safe.

Kate just has time to plead "You don't have to, sir" before Castle grabs her.

He doesn't have time to think. If the car pulls up and Kate's there, they will shoot her without a second thought. She's worth so much more than that, not just to him but to everyone. He's not losing her, not like this.

He wraps his arms around her, lifts her up and carries her out of the hangar. She thrashes against him, the savage cry of her frantic heart spilling out of her. "No, God, Castle let go. No, please." She screams please and he almost drops her, almost lets her run back, almost lets her go. And then he remembers what will happen if he does that and he tightens his hold. She is going to hate him, but she's going to be alive to do so and that's all he needs.

He barges through the door, the icy night immediate in its embrace of them. He barely flinches. The woman he loves is coming apart in his arms and he only has room for her, every breath he takes one he would give back if it meant she'd be spared this. "Rick, please."

He puts her down but doesn't let go, can't release her to the animals in the hangar. He's going to lose his captain; he can't lose the woman who holds his heart as well. "Shh," he begs. If they hear her, they'll kill them both and Roy's sacrifice will have been for nothing.

He walks her over to his car, pushes her back against it, hopes the solid framework can lend her strength. Her keening sobs tear at him, he presses his hand to her mouth to try and hold them in, keep her quiet. Has to remove it because he cannot gag her, he will not do that, not to Kate. He brushes her hair back, his fingertips lingering at her temple.. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." The guilt eats him inside but he won't feel regret, can't ever lament having saved her.

Her fingers reach out to brush at his jaw, perhaps trying to tether herself as her whole world implodes. She buckles, falls against him, trusts him to hold her up.

The staccato gunfire cuts him, bleeds him out, leaves him empty. One shot rings out and he knows it's done somehow, some inexplicable quality to that last sound that tells him it's over. He loosens his hold enough that Kate can break free, sprint towards the hangar. He follows her, slowly enough to give her a moment alone with her fallen mentor.

Rick walks into the hangar. Kate's body is a broken curve to the tangent of Roy's fallen body. She sobs against his chest, palms flat against him as if it can bring him back. He moves around, spends a silent moment kneeling next to each of the bodies, checking that Roy got them all, that he really ended this.

He has to call Esposito and tell him what happened. It takes everything he has to get the words out, knowing all the while that it will destroy the detectives he's come to see as brothers. Once he's done, he moves over to Kate, always drawn to her. He lifts her up again, a small voice in the back of his mind noting how easy it is, how she's wasting away in front of him.

He carries her far away from the bodies scattered like a timeline of Roy's last stand, the man himself at the nucleus. Far enough that the paramedics and the cops will have room to do their jobs.

She sobs into his chest, one hand fisted in his shirt. He rocks her back and forth, strokes her hair over and over, desperate to give her more, give her his heart to hold her up until her own can mend.

He holds her while Esposito, Ryan, Lanie, the uniforms and the ambulances arrive.

He holds her while they bag up all the bodies.

He holds her while her slender frame is wracked with sobs.

He holds her until she has exhausted herself, and then he picks her up and carries her out to his car. He straps her in to the passenger seat, can't help leaning in to press his lips to her temple as she stares vacantly out the window.

He drives in silence to her apartment, carries her through the main door and into the elevator. He cradles her against him, rocking again through the ascent, and then he fishes her apartment key from her pocket, manages to unlock the door and balance her weight. He gets inside and carries her through to the bedroom, choking on the guilt that assaults him as he enters her sacred space without permission.

He gets her a glass of water. When he returns she's curled into a foetal position, her face buried against a pillow. It kills him. He can't equate this broken woman with Kate Beckett, unbreakable pillar of strength.

"Castle." Her voice rasps in her throat and he winces, but he buckles under a wave of relief. She's talking, she's aware of his presence and that's more than he'd dared to hope for when he carried her up here.

"Shh. Drink this." He climbs onto her bed and sits against the headboard, helps her to sit in the vee of his legs. He tugs her back to lean on his chest and raises the glass to her mouth. She downs the whole thing in one. "Kate. I'm so sorry."

She doesn't respond, turns instead to curl against his chest, bury her face against him. His hand cards through her hair, already a habit.

He holds her there against him until her breathing evens out, her hand tracing the line of buttons on his shirt up and down as if she's not aware she's doing it. "Hey. I'm sorry, I know you don't want to move, but you need to get cleaned up."

Her hands are sticky with Roy's blood, his shirt covered in red handprints like a twisted version of a kindergartener's painting. He eases her off his lap, stands up and fishes in her closet for sweats and a shirt. He passes them to her and she doesn't meet his eyes.

"I _can _dress myself, Castle." He flinches, recoils, and she reaches out to grasp his wrist, the bones of her fingers sharp at his pulse. "I'm sorry."

"No. Of course. I'll give you a minute." He goes through to the bathroom, turns on the tap for her. She appears, washes her hands in silence and disappears again. Leaves him to watch water stained pink with Roy's blood swirling away down the drain.

He braces his hands on the sink, locks his elbows and leans forwards, trying to give his lungs room to expand. He won't look at the mirror, can't face the reflection of a man worn down and beaten.

He goes back to her bedroom, finds her dressed and sitting on the bed. She's rocking back and forth, her eyes glassy and vacant. He sits opposite her, two fingers at her chin to tilt her face, make her look at him.

"How are you holding up?" He wants to smile, wants to give her that, but the muscles of his face are atrophying, giving up.

"He was my mentor, Rick. My friend. I left him to die." Fresh tears swim in her eyes and he feels his heart thud helplessly against his ribs, a captive bird. He never, ever wants to have to see Kate cry again.

"You didn't leave him, Kate. You wanted to stay but I took you away." His voice is so quiet, he doesn't dare raise it. He wants to give her as much peace as he can, try and soothe her.

"It's okay. I know why you did it." There are subtle traces of forgiveness in her tone and he will do all he can to nurture them, get her back.

"I thought I was going to lose you too. And that would break me. I did it to protect you."

She doesn't respond to his words, stands up instead. Her legs are trembling and every muscle in his body coils, longing to catch her, help her. He knows he can't, clenches his fist and watches as she makes her way to the kitchen.

He closes his eyes, runs his hands over his face, tries to scrub away the memory of Kate's cries, Roy's body, the way she felt against him as she fell apart.

"Shit." It's quiet, her curse, but he's so attuned to her every movement now that it deafens him. He doesn't even give himself a chance to second guess his actions before he's running to her.

She'd huddled over the sink, cradling her hand to her chest, her blood spreading out across her shirt. He tries not to gag. He's not sensitive to blood, but when it's Kate's blood his body's immediate reaction is to panic. Her blood needs to stay safely inside her at all times.

He moves over to her, a palm at her shoulder. "Kate? What happened?"

"The glass fell and I tried to catch it." She turns her face towards him, hot tears spilling past the barrier of her closed eyes and sliding down her nose.

He cradles her hand in his, runs the cold water and manoeuvres her injured finger under the stream. "Don't move."

He runs to her bathroom, roots through the cabinet until he finds a first aid kit and then runs back to her, feeling ridiculous but unable to stop the burst of adrenaline.

He guides her over to sit at the dining table, finds antiseptic cream in the kit and rubs it onto her cut. She winces, hisses through her teeth, and even that small concession to pain where he would expect her to bear it stoically sends a fresh wave of agony through his system.

"Sorry. I'm so sorry." He fixes a band aid to the wound, brings her finger up to his mouth and presses a kiss to it. He dares to glance at her, finds her eyes wide and fixed on his, her mouth a straight and unforgiving line.

He holds her gaze for a moment in which he falls in love with her all over again and this time, she knows it. Her lips part long before she finds words. "Thank you." Her voice is little more than a rasp now, every molecule of her body pushed to exhaustion.

He stands up and walks around to her, offers her his hand. She takes it, allows him to help her stand. He laces his fingers through hers and she closes her eyes, leans into him. Her lips are so close to his he can taste her before he manages to make himself pull away. "No, not now. Not tonight. I'm not giving you an out. I'm not going to let you blame grief. When we do this, we do it right."

"I wouldn't blame grief, Rick." She shakes her head, bites her lip. He longs to rescue it from her teeth, trace it with his tongue. "What you did tonight, I can- I see that you care about me. I see how much you're willing to risk to protect me."

He bows his head, his forehead meeting hers in as close to a kiss as he can give her tonight. "If you really want to do this, let's wait until after the funeral. We can't start this in the midst of Montgomery. We'd be ruining it before it began."

She nods, squeezes his hand and then lets him go. She moves back through to her bedroom, hesitates in the doorway and looks back at him. "You coming?"

He hurries over to her, catches her hand again and follows her lead, lies down behind the curl of her body, presses his front to her back. He rests his hand at her waist, hopes he can diffuse some heat across the pallor of her skin.

He breathes in the scent of her hair, not cherries anymore but something else. Something smoky and dark and broken, but healing. He trusts that she'll get through this.

There's no other option.


End file.
